According to UnemploymentData.com, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) recently reported the Unemployment rates for January A.D. 2015 as follows:
Adjusted U-3 unemployment rose “insignificantly” from 5.6% to 5.7%.
Unadjusted unemployment rose from 5.4% in December to 6.1% in January.
Unadjusted U-6 unemployment i.e. including discouraged workers who’ve given up looking plus those working part-time but seeking full-time employment jumped from 11.1% in December to 12.0% in January.
But Jim Clifton, the CEO of Gallup Polls, said that unemployment is really closer to 9%.
According to Clifton,
“There’s no other way to say this. The official unemployment rate . . . amounts to a Big Lie.
“When the media, talking heads, the White House and Wall Street start reporting the truth–the percent of Americans in good jobs; jobs that are full time and real–then we’ll also quit wondering what hollowed out the middle class. . . . I suggest the real unemployment rate after weeding out disability fraud, forced retirement, kids hiding out in school for lack of a job, and those who are not counted as unemployed simply because they gave up looking is more like 9% than 7%.”
Mr. Clifton implies that: 1) the real unemployment rate much higher than is currently reported by government; 2) government knows the unemployment situation is worse than the rosy BLS numbers suggest; but, 3) government is intentionally lying about the unemployment numbers in order to deceive the American people into thinking that “happy days are here again,” and the Obama administration is competent to lead our economy
Let’s suppose that unemployment is a real problem that this nation should seek to solve. How will we ever solve that problem so long as government lies about the magnitude of the problem?
Lies about unemployment rates are just like modern manipulated market indices which are supposed to “discover” true prices so we can properly allocate capital. If government “discovers” that the unemployment rate is only 5%, we need not allocate much political “capital” to solving that problem. That problem isn’t too severe.
But, if government “discovers” that the real unemployment rate is closer to 23% (as claimed by John Williams at Shadowstats.com), then Congress and the White House had better stop fooling around in Ukraine and Syria and devote maximum “political capital” to solving our domestic unemployment problem.
Without access to honest unemployment numbers, “political capital” is “misallocated” to serve the falsified needs of special interests rather than real needs of average Americans.
Somebody’s lying about US unemployment rates. More, somebody’s not being held accountable for their lies.
In the short term, lies rob some and enrich other. In the long term, lies ultimately kill—but, for now, in America, lies rule.
How long can any economy, government or nation built on lies survive? How long before fundamental lies become unsustainable and are exposed? How long before those lies waste so much financial and/or political “capital” that the entire system crashes into reality, on into poverty and then even into political chaos?
